The Very Real and Horrible Consequences of Nicaragua's 2006 Abortion Ban

This story reveals how the real effects of Nicaragua's no-exceptions abortion ban are playing out now, and the news is not good:

"Two weeks after Olga Reyes danced at her wedding, her bloated and disfigured body was laid to rest in an open coffin — the victim, her husband and some experts say, of Nicaragua's new no-exceptions ban on abortion.
Reyes, a 22-year-old law student, suffered an ectopic pregnancy. The fetus develops outside the uterus, cannot survive and causes bleeding that endangers the mother. But doctors seemed afraid to treat her because of the anti-abortion law, said husband Agustin Perez. By the time they took action, it was too late."

Let's get this clear: this wouldn't have been an "unwanted pregnancy" abortion. This wouldn't have been a case of abortion-as-birth-control. This wouldn't even have been a case where, had the pregnancy been brought to term, the fetus would survive. This was, simply put, a case where, because of the law in Nicaragua, a dead baby was going to kill its 22 year old mother. No doubt, doctors were probably afraid to treat Reyes out of fear they would be prosecuted. As the article points out, fewer than twelve (TWELVE!) legal abortions a year were recorded in Nicaragua prior to 2006, but the number of secret abortions was doubtlessly higher (though I see no reason to trust the Catholic Church's figure of 36,000, obviously given the nature of the source). Had this law not been put into effect, it isn't that Nicaraguan women everywhere would be running to get an abortion. But women like Reyes (and the other two, unnamed women who have already died because they couldn't get the treatment they had to have to survive) are instead forced to die because the medical profession (which, last time I checked, was kind of there to help us live) couldn't and wouldn't help her.

The fact that Reyes had a condition in which the fetus - no matter the outcome - was going to die, and yet she couldn't save her own life, and that doctors weren't willing to save her life, offers just one more reason why this abortion ban has to go. It isn't just denying what should be the fundamental rights of a woman - it's hiding behind the "defense of life" while actually killing more people.